Powerhouse

[krinkles619]

I am building a new gaming pc in the future, probably over the summer (wait for the i9). I have selected a few components so far and I was wondering what the community thought about these things, and if I should perhaps get something better for comparable price.

As it stands I have selected:
Corsair Dominator-GT 2gig Ram (x3)
WD VelociRaptor 300gig HDD (x3 on Raid)
XFX Radeon HD 5870 (x2 on crossfireX)
XFX X58i Motherboard
XFX 850W Black Edition PSU

I had a few simple questions. For one, will that PSU have enough power to run everything?

I also am in need of finding a case. I had hoped I could air-cool this setup, but after looking at it thoroughly I have considered seriously doing a liquid-cooled system. I was wondering if anybody had any thoughts on this. I found a site that sells all the cooling parts (http://www.koolance.com/default.php), but I don't know what works best, and as I've found out, expensive doesn't always mean better. With two cards, a big board and other things I was thinking that a regular tower might not work all that well due to space constrictions. I was looking at some MountainMods cases and I was wondering about the community's opinions on that as well.

Any help is appreciated. I want to make a BA gaming rig and I want to do it right.

 

[tecmo34]

We can't give you a recommendation on builds for a Summer 2010 build. Only one is = Don't purchase the VRaptor. It isn't worth the money with SSD drives and newer hard drives with 500GB Platters, that equal performance for 1/4 the price.

Everything will have changed by that point... Examples... i9 (as you mentioned), GTX3xx Series cards, ATI 5890 or ATI 5870X2 could be on the market, X58 motherboards with USB/SATA3 support. Drop in prices of SSD, what will the speeds of the new SATA3 hard drives be compared to VRaptor.

 

[galta]

If you only plan to build your system in 6 months from now, it's hard to give you some good advice now. God knows what could be around then.
Some considerations, though:
- 3x RAID. I assume it's RAID0, but what for? Absolutely no gain in games, plus higher risk of HDD failure. If you need speed, get and SSD.
- XFX is a good brand, but you can find better MOBOs. Today, I would suggest you Asus or EVGA SLI Classified. Anyway, in 6 months from now, you should be able to get a MOBO with SATA600, USB 3.0 etc..
- Two 5870 makes no sense in 6 months from now. Actually, in a couple of weeks, it won't make any sense, either. You should be able to get a X2 version, avoind Xfire complications.
- On PSU, play safe and get a 1000W Corsair.
- Water cooling... Unless you're planning on heavy OC, it makes sense only if you're planning to use it on your GPUs as well. In that case, you could profit from lower temperatures all over your case and lower noise level.

Tell me in future if it works